BME: Body Modification Ezine

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Celebrating body modification culture since 1994.

Category: ModBlog

  • Sometimes bigger is better

    Written by

    Rob

    IAM:Twosteps sent in this shot of himself the other day, and unless I’m missing something it looks like he’s managed to stretch all of his piercings above the neck.

    twosteps

    I know that the concept of “bigger is better” has been discussed on ModBlog recently, but in the case of Twosteps here, he shows off that for him, bigger is definitely better.  When it comes to stretching out any piercing, there’s a degree of commitment made towards an eventual goal.  I use the term commitment because the act of stretching is a long and involved process.  Of course it can be sped up at points with the assistance of a skilled practitioner, but over time there is only so much outside assistance one can get.  In the end it takes both mental and physical commitment to the goal for it to be realized.  So in addition to the time it takes to stretch something out, there is also the need for patience, because we all know what can happen if a stretching is rushed.

    Thankfully for Twosteps here, it looks like everything is going well on his part.  I don’t know if he’s done with everything or not, but the matching jewelry, combined with the placementof the piercings, really make the big piercings look great on him.

  • Magnets, how do they work?

    Written by

    Rob

    Apologies for the ICP lyric, but it’s been a while since we’ve had a story about magnetic implants I couldn’t help myself.

    Rata, from Rata Body Art Studio in Buenos Aires, recently spent a couple of months working in Florida as a guest artist.  On his last day in Florida, Pinhead and Johnny Vilonius decided to surprise him by giving him some magnetic implants as a parting gift.  Rata has had his work featured on ModBlog before a couple of times, but I believe this marks the first time that he’s been the subject of the photo, not the artist behind the work featured.

    Thanks to Johnny for sending in the photos.  According to him the procedure only took 10 minutes, and he was on a plane back home the very next day.  The first image is of Rata looking at his fingers, and the second is of Pinhead inserting the magnets.

    Rata

    Pinhead

    You can check out the rest of the images in the discreet implants gallery.

  • Points of Symmetry

    Written by

    Rob

    Symmetry gets mentioned often with relation to modifications.  I’ve seen countless comments on ModBlog praising a person whose facial piercings are matched up perfectly.  A while back The Discovery Channel did a documentary on sex appeal, where it was mentioned that people find others more attractive the more symmetrical their faces are.  I believe there was a BBC documentary on something similar as well.

    The point of all this is to look at why the same trends towards physical beauty carry over into the modified community.  Is it just that we’re programmed genetically to see something symmetrical as aesthetically pleasing, or is it a conscious choice on our part.  Of course this doesn’t apply to everyone, as there are a great many people who find things that are asymmetrical much more appealing.

    Take this play piercing session as an example.  IAM: oOunbekanntOo submitted this image of his first ever play piercing session to BME’s play piercing gallery.

    play

    Given that the design was intended to be symmetrical, do you think you would feel differently about it if it were an asymmetrical design?  In the lower right hand corner you can see a couple of needles have shifted direction (probably when he stood up).  Is your eye drawn to this point because of the flaw in the symmetry, or does the overall image supersede an unintentional shift?

    What about those who prefer asymmetrical designs, is there anything you would prefer to see different about the design, or should this session just be viewed for what it is; a great play piercing session that a member of the community shared with us.

  • Lock and Key

    Written by

    Rob

    “To hide the key to your heart is to risk forgetting where you placed it.”

    –Timothy Childers

    It seems that ModBlog regular IAM: Efix has been pretty busy the past few days.  With the Montreal Tattoo convention, and several guest spots finished, Efix has come home and has uploaded to BME some of the wonderful work he has done recently.

    heart lock

    I’m not sure exactly where this cutting is placed, but what I do know is that he pulled off a beautiful cutting, while maintaining the symmetry of the design.  Hopefully we’ll get to see more images of this design as it heals, as I’d love to use it for one of the Friday Follow-ups.  In the meantime, you can check out more of Efix’s work in his BME gallery.

  • Worst case scenario

    Written by

    Rob

    The often quoted Murphy’s Law says something along the lines of “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong”.  When it comes to modifications, we always hope that nothing will go wrong with anything we get.  Now I’m not talking about the procedure, more along the lines of what can happen down the road.  You could be getting dressed for work when you suddenly snag a microdermal and tear it.  You could be riding a bike down a moutainside when you fall and scrape up your arm so badly it ruins one of your tattoos.

    In the case of Nikita IAM: 9sbg-av4372071, he got into a fight a little while ago and ended up tearing open his medusa stretching project.  If he looks familiar to you, that’s because he was the young man who attempted the single point elbow suspension that ended in a nasty tear.

    27mm

    Here’s how it looked last year when he had it up to 24mm.  There are other images of it in the lip plate gallery.

    24mm

    Prior to the fight Nikita’s had stretched his medusa all the way up to 27mm.  If you head over to his IAM page, you can see pictures of how it looked before he lost it.

    Hopefully Nikita continues to upload images of how he’s fixing it to the lip disc reversal gallery.  And let’s hope he manages to go a long time before anything else traumatic happens to him or any of his modifications.

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